Message to the National Education Association on the Mission of Education in America and the Role of the Federal Government

To the National Education Association:

In America, the basic mission of education is clear and compelling: to provide every person--regardless of race, economic status or locality--the opportunity to develop to the highest capacity of his or her own self, and for the common good. In seeking to achieve this purpose, public education--and private education, as well--serves to strengthen our system of self-government and our freedom as a people.

As the means by which all Americans promote the welfare of their national community, the Federal Government's role in education is also clear and compelling. It is to facilitate and encourage--but never to control--the process of education.

Education can only flourish and make its fullest contribution if the process of education is free--free to seek truth and to teach truth, unfettered by political restraint.

To nurture our freedom in education, the American people placed control of their public school system in the States and local communities. Through State and local control, we have the benefits of a widespread responsibility and a rich diversity of ingenuity and initiative, without the stultifying risk of a centralized Federal school system.

On the other hand, the Federal Government is active in the field of education by providing broad national leadership and assistance, using methods that encourage State and local effort. While this broad role has been uppermost, the Federal Government has also met many specific needs with concrete action.

For a century, the Federal Government has given financial support to colleges which provide agricultural and mechanical training. For eighty-nine years the Federal Government has been the chief source of nationwide information on education. For forty years, the Federal Government has given financial support to the development of vocational education. For six years, the Federal Government has provided funds to build and operate schools in areas where the concentration of Federal defense activities has caused a special need.

These were specific actions taken by the Federal Government to meet changing conditions and needs on a national scale. The present Republican Administration, too, has acted to meet today's problems in education which involve the Nation as a whole.

Through our White House Conference on Education we have stimulated a new public interest in elementary and secondary schools. During our Administration a major expansion has been launched in fact-finding, advisory, and other services of the United States Office of Education. For the first time in history, a program of financial grants to universities, colleges and State departments of education has been established to encourage research into hard-core problems of education. This Administration has sought--and will continue to seek--legislation to help communities with inadequate resources to build the classrooms our children need in every part of the country. And a committee of distinguished laymen and educators has been appointed to study and make recommendations on the growing problems of education beyond the high school.

There is one final indispensable key to continued progress. Our American educational system can never be any better than the men and women who instruct our children. We have better teachers today than ever before, but we need more of them than ever before. And if we are to continue to have the finest teaching staff in the world, our teachers must be compensated adequately--in salary, in community support and in honor for the sacred trust they bear: the education of future Americans.

DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER